John Laffey' s major research interest is in the study of the pathophysiology of, and the development of therapeutic strategies for, acute lung injury and ARDS, a devastating disease process affecting seriously ill adults and children. His clinical interests include intensive care medicine, obstetric, paediatric and vascular anaesthesia, and acute pain medicine.

The Lung Biology team at NUI Galway, in collaboration with REMEDI, aims to develop novel regenerative medicine approaches for patients with Acute Lung Injury and Acute Respiratoy distress Syndrome (ALI/ARDS), a devastating disease, which exerts a considerable disease burden, and for which there are no therapies at present.

The team is studying the therapeutic efficacy of a variety of gene therapy and stem cell approaches both alone and in combination. Animal models currently in use include rodent acute lung injury (ALI) induced by bacterial pneumonia, high stretch ventilation. The group has published experience in the use of pulmonary and systemic ischaemia-reperfusion, free radical, and toxin induced ALI. We are currently focused on the use of rodent mesenchymal stem cells, in these ALI models. Promising approaches that emerge from these preclinical studies will be taken to clinical study. In this regard, we have access to human stem cells that are produced according to protocols which are described in the investigational medicinal product dossier by the REMEDI GMP team to ensure suitability of data for regulatory submission.

Clinical Translation Team: REMEDI contains a GMP facility and has access to a recently approved Clinical Research Facility (CRF) at Galway University Hospital with dedicated infrastructure for clinical trials in regenerative medicine. The CRF is a constituent of the Irish Clinical Research Infrastructure which links all such facilities in Ireland. The director of the Lung Biology group (John Laffey) is also the deputy director of the Irish Critical Trials Group, a network of 15 Intensive Care units across the Island of Ireland. This group is currently leading an international, multicentre phase 2/3 clinical trial of the use of Simvastatin in ALI/ARDS [HARP-2 study], underlining its capacity for translational research in ALI/ARDS.